Dramatic cuts to the Washington Post are being met with outrage as employees and the broader journalism community try to understand how such a storied institution could unravel so quickly.
The perceived lack of empathy from top management and the company’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos is compounding the fury.
As of Wednesday night, neither CEO Will Lewis nor Bezos had made any public statements about the cuts, which will impact roughly 30% of the Post’s staff.
“This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations,” the Post’s celebrated former editor-in-chief Marty Baron said in a lengthy statement.
I so very very very much hope the 300 fired journalists unite to form a journalist/newspaper co-op, co-owned by all of them, with a public good mandate, not owned by a billionaire…
They’d have something rare: Instant credibility, massive talent & experience and a ton of audience curiosity. They’d be able to create a truly independent organization, maybe even bring in Bill Owens who resigned from 60 minutes, and if they needed $ for co-op lawyers etc, I’m 100% certain that they’d crush a GoFundMe campaign target…
Fuck if someone know anyone who is in the fired 300, pleaaaase plead to them to consider this…
Once upon a time, there were rules to keep the press independent. All those rules are gone.
And now the term free press has become a joke in USA. The press is 100% controlled by the 1%, the press that isn’t bought by them, is only allowed to exist as long as they don’t bother the 1% too much, and kept running to make an appearance of a traditional free press.Thanks Reagan
Not the worst in the world, but somewhere between Sierra Leon and South Korea. A significant drop from last year, and we can be assured of a huge drop again this year.
That’s bad enough, but it’s actually worse.
Problem with that chart is that it assumes USA is a democracy and the press is actually independent, but in reality USA is as much an oligarchy as a democracy, and viewed by that standard, the majority of the press is owned by the same ruling class that control the government.And that would make USA more like for instance Turkey.
As I mentioned before, they’ve managed to keep up the appearance of a free press way more than actually being a free press.
Democrats may criticize Republicans and vice versa, but when Democrats began talking about taxing the rich, some key press leaderships were quickly changed to more Republican leaning.Actual press freedom in USA is dead.
Glad I dumped it at the end of 24. Like all billionaires, it’s just a tool to them to leverage more power, nothing more.
reignite concerns
Either you found another journal of record ten years ago or you kept eating that slop until yesterday. Idk what reignited concerns are supposed to get us. Be concerned. Don’t be concerned. He’s still going to gut the paper and fill it in with gooey reactionary fluff.
WP has been and only will be a propaganda rag since bezos bought them. End of story, no concerns were re-ignited as a result of this fluff piece.
My concerns were never extinguished, so they can’t really be reignited.
c/LateStageCapitalism
“Reignite”? My guy the fires never went out in the first place.
